7,613 rapes were recorded in Sadiq Khan’s London in the 12 months to the end of January 2018, compared with 6,392 over the previous year — a rise of almost 20 per cent, the Evening Standard reports.

Some have attempted to attribute the rise to victims being more confident in coming forward, but Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, has admitted that the figures could point to a legitimate “increase in actual sexual violence and rape offending”.

Deputy Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police force Sir Craig Mackey, too, has confessed that “there is something going on with sexual offending in London” — but claimed to be none the wiser when asked at the London Assembly if he could explain what was behind the rise.

“No, is the honest answer. It’s not as simple as saying this is increased confidence. Of course, that plays a part but there is something going on with sexual offending in London that we don’t fully understand, the causes of it. We see the end of it, [but] we don’t understand the causes.”

Sir Craig’s failure to consider the negative impact on social and inter-community cohesion on London after decades of mass migration and state-sponsored multiculturalism — cheered on by Mayor Khan and his political fellow-travellers — echoes the comments of his superior, Cressida Dick, on the arrival of grooming gangs in the capital.

Commissioner Dick appeared unwilling to accept that there was any racial or cultural angle to the fact that some 84 per cent of groomers have turned out to be Muslims of South Asian extraction, and their victims overwhelmingly non-Muslim — prompting fears that the authorities are still bound by the same politically correct dogma which stopped crimes from being investigated in cities like Rotherham and Rochdale for years.

“I don’t think this was a phenomenon invented in the last few years – it really wasn’t – it has been part of our society for probably centuries and centuries and centuries,” she insisted — despite the fact the Muslim population was under 1 per cent within living memory.

The problem of rape in London is not expected to improve any time soon, with a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police saying the force expects numbers to continue rising for the next two to five years.